Article October 2, 2000 Issue

What I learned while canoeing

By Nancy Humphrey Case

Have you ever watched something so exquisitely beautiful or so startlingly interesting—such as the northern lights or a butterfly emerging from its cocoon—that you lost consciousness of anything else, including yourself? If friends had come up to you at that moment without your realizing it, what would they have seen in your face? Wouldn't they have seen a reflection of the beauty that was absorbing your thought?

I believe this illustrates, to a degree, what is going on when Christ, God's healing and saving power, restores our peace of mind and heals us. Christ reveals what is spiritually true. When this insight wholly absorbs us, there's no room in our consciousness for anything unlike God—no room for belief in the reality of sickness or sin. This is the divine healing Principle behind the Biblical promise "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isa. 45:22).

I once had crystal-clear proof of this. Although I had a heavy cold, I'd gone out canoeing with a friend. We were enjoying autumn in New England, especially the wetland foliage in its full fiery glory. We were alone in the wild, and as we paddled along silently, I began to think about all the qualities of God that each one of His children reflects. Taking the primary names for God found in Science and Health (see p. 465), I explored the qualities associated with each name, and knew that as God's reflection, I expressed these qualities.

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